


Drop the Dagger

by moonheist



Category: Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill
Genre: Books, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Romance, not really song fic but there are sections separated by lyrics, overuse of fairytale references, sad princess vibes, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-15
Updated: 2007-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonheist/pseuds/moonheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She used to believe in fairytales. And then her parents stopped kissing. Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drop the Dagger

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted to Livejournal July 15, 2007.

**I. Let it rain; let it pour.**

As the girl behind the red door, she felt somewhat entitled. When her mother tucked her into her pink-sheeted canopy bed every night and sat down in the rocking chair just a few feet from the mattress to read her a story, she imagined herself as the magical princess in the far-away land who ended up with the most handsome prince in the entire world. 

She imagined herself in a deep sleep like Aurora, and playing croquet with the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland, and dancing in flawless glass slippers at the grand ball like Cinderella. Brooke didn’t know that the world wasn’t made of such wonderful and fantastical things like dragons and fairies and magical pumpkin carriages. She just assumed that mommy was telling the truth, that the words she memorized as she fell into the deep slumber of an innocent child were as real and substantial as the ice cream truck that drove by every day during the summer.

From the age of five to the age of ten, she held onto that belief with the tender desperation of a little girl not-quite-lost. She used to believe in fairytales.

And then her parents stopped kissing.

And started screaming.

And took up the habit of throwing things at each other.

And even though she could read for herself now, she couldn’t concentrate on the familiar text because the house shook with slamming doors and broken glasses. She wanted to crawl under the covers — currently purple, since she had decided that pink was much too popular of a color — and wait patiently for Peter to come and fly her away to Neverland. She wanted to climb into her wardrobe and stay there for years and years, only instead of coming back to find that nothing had changed since she left, she would have remained in Narnia for the sake of her own sanity.

On Brooke’s eleventh birthday, her mother didn’t get out of bed. Her father didn’t come home from work. And she couldn’t even go to Peyton’s for the celebration she wanted and very much deserved because Mrs. Sawyer had just died and no one would even answer the door anymore.

So she pulled her little black raincoat with the purple bows over her small frame and grabbed an umbrella before stepping past the red door out into the rain. Thunderstorms had been rolling in and out of the town for nearly a week now and she was perfectly exhausted with being cooped up inside with nothing to do. The Cat in the Hat never came to her rescue, and she really was beginning to lose faith in happily-ever-afters.

The clerk at the bakery gave her a cupcake for free and she smiled through quivering, cold-lightened lips as he placed a single flaming birthday candle in the center of the frosting. When she blew it out, she wished that her parents would be happy again.

And she immediately burst into tears when she arrived home to find four broken vases on the living room floor and her mother walking down the stairs with a suitcase. She didn’t tell anyone about her wish.

So why didn’t it come true?

**II. You told me you wanted to eat up my sadness.**

“Yeah, I think I got it,” she rolled her eyes and wrapped her fingers tighter around her keys, sighing as the censor on the remote failed to connect to that in her car. Brooke swallowed thickly and stopped when she reached the baby blue vehicle, leaning against her door.

“Brooke Penelope Davis, you do not speak to your mother in that condescending tone of voice,” the voice in the phone snapped harshly. Clenching her jaw, she lowered her voice and let her eyes stray over the parking lot for the final time.

“How’s Dad?” she asked sarcastically. She kept her voice soft even as she pushed off of her car and unlocked the door manually. The line was quiet and she smirked softly, pulling the phone away from her ear and ending the call. It didn’t ring again as she climbed into the Beetle and pulled out of the parking lot at Tree Hill High, and she took it as a good sign.

The road stretched out ahead of her and she rolled the top down, let the wind whip through her hair to ensconce her in a cloud of dark brown strands and smoky-soft North Carolina air as she relaxed in her seat. The trees lining the road made her think of Grumpy, and the fairest girl in all the land, and she wondered why jealousy had to be so prominent in every success story. She wondered if the breath of competition was what brought her mother back to the house seven and a half years ago after lightening hit a house two blocks down and burned it to the ground.

She wondered if the woman ever realized that Brooke knew every detail of that night like it was written all over her skin in twenty different shades of text with italicized and bolded segments placed strategically for emphasis.

Most of all, she wondered if things could have been different had she been taught how to trust reality as opposed to fiction. On this day, at this hour, only forty-five minutes after her high school graduation ceremony, she felt more alone than she ever had been before. Brooke wanted to know why it was so hard to talk to her parents when they were all the way across the country, and she wanted to know why no one seemed to understand the fact that she was only optimistic in the presence of others.

“Once upon a time…” she sighed as she pulled into Rachel’s driveway, removing her key from the ignition and sliding the ring onto her thumb. The trek up the stairs was briefer than it should have been, and her feet picked up speed as she gathered the last of her belongings to place in the suitcase that was still sitting open on the bed.

“In a land far, far away,” she recited around the lump in her throat as tears gathered unbidden beneath her pupils. Brooke stood up straight when the over-sized piece of luggage was zipped and took a deep breath, wiping her eyes before the tears could be so bold as to escape and slide down her cheeks.

“There lived a beautiful princess,” she removed her plane ticket from the outside pocket of the suitcase and smiled briefly at the site of her name written in bold capital letters on the slip of paper. “Who never realized how cruel people could be,” she whispered with a slightly furrowed brow.

——

The tiny red light on her phone blinked repeatedly, informing her once, twice, three times, four within just as many seconds that she had a new voicemail. She kept a firm grip on the phone as she stood on the sidewalk outside of the airport, and the distinct smell of the city infiltrated her senses, effectively dizzying her until she wanted to spin and see if it had a reverse effect on the nausea.

Whenever the princess twirled around in her prince’s arms, she smiled. Brooke wanted to know what it felt like to put her arms out and just spin and spin and spin. Brooke wanted to know what it was like to be so in love with someone that it ached in places she didn’t know existed. Brooke wanted someone to fall just as deeply for her as she had for him.

“Lucas Scott,” she repeated the name that had flashed across her caller id just ten minutes ago and then turned the cell phone off completely, shoving it into her purse with ardor. Once, he promised her that he would hold her forever and never let go. And she had pushed him into the arms of her best friend because she didn’t see him holding her hand when she finally walked off into the sunset.

Then again, she didn’t see herself walking off into the sunset at all. Her parents may have moved to California, where the seasons never change, but when she stayed with them for the summer they were even angrier than in Tree Hill and there was no glass anywhere in the house. She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad, but she knew that it wasn’t right.

Lucas couldn’t digest the true levels of her sadness no matter how hard he tried. And daddy would never be the guy that mommy wanted ever again because both of them were too used to trysts with the neighbors and high-society men and women to care about their marriage anymore.

**III. Excuse me, too busy writing your tragedy.**

“Romance section is in the back,” he gestured vaguely behind him and she raised her eyebrows briefly. She hadn’t even said a word to this guy yet, and he already assumed he had her pinned. Her mother was the one that indulged in Nicholas Sparks’s nostalgic smutathons, not Brooke.

“Well, thank you for being a judgmental _ass_ ,” she retorted. He looked up at her and she briefly wondered if any of the princes in those fairytales had eyes that were as dark as chocolate. “But I’m actually looking for the classics.”

“Assuming that you know how to read,” he pushed away from the desk he was sitting at and stood, turning and pointing at the small sign labeling the shelf she was in search of. He turned back to her and smirked. “Then you can navigate the signs and find what you’re looking for.”

She stared at him disdainfully as he took his seat at the desk again and she pressed her lips into a thin line to symbolize her impatience. Brown Eyes continued to ignore her as he wrote in a tattered old notebook and she laughed somewhat bitterly.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she started walking toward the shelf she desired and smiled as she adjusted her grip on her purse. “Wouldn’t want you to forget your sob story for today’s Dream Journal entry.”

The sound of his pencil scratching against the paper stopped abruptly and she tucked her hair behind her ear, gazing at the titles with a warm but distant familiarity. Technically, the fiction contained within the bindings had been her downfall. Technically, she was still making excuses for the fact that she was finally a fully lost little girl with no idea how to get her own happy ending.

“You know, it’s not generally considered polite to barge into an establishment and accuse one of its employees of being an attention-seeking ass,” he said seriously. Brooke tilted her head and drew a copy of Lewis Carroll’s infamous novel from the shelf, furrowing her brow as she flipped through the pages.

“And here I thought the customer was always right,” she murmured. Turning around, she fought not to gasp when she found him standing only about a foot from her. Holding up the thin volume she asked, “Do you have any copies of this that aren’t annotated?”

“What? You don’t want the cheater’s guide to deciphering the insanity of Wonderland?” he deadpanned. She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.

“You think you’ve got me pinned.” It wasn’t a question, and the slight spark in his eyes told her that he knew it wasn’t, either. She clenched her fingers around the binding of the book when he reached for it, but relinquished her grip when he gently took the book from her.

“Well, last time I checked we hadn’t had sex yet, but see this as you will,” he smirked again and started flipping through the pages, chocolate eyes scanning them expertly and efficiently. She was reminded of her father after a long day at the office when he returned home with even more work to get done. Back then, she wore a black coat with purple bows. Faux-bows, really.

Now she was in Philadelphia wearing a designer suede jacket and searching for novels that she could try to drown herself in. That had already killed her, stripped her raw so that her very soul bled with the realization that Prince Charming was a phony, one of the ones that Holden Caulfield hated so much, that her ex-best friend swore she despised with just as much hypocrisy.

“Why a fairytale?” he wondered, pulling her abruptly out of her reverie. She blinked for a moment and then shrugged slowly, locking eyes with him once he finally looked up at her. “Looking for a little hope?” he asked wryly. Clearly, he didn’t believe in happy endings either. Somehow she took comfort in the fact.

“I don’t believe in absolution,” she said finally. His expression remained blank and she felt like the dark hue of her irises was going to turn black from the intensity of his gaze. “I was wondering if I could find actual tragedy in any of my old favorites.”

“I’m Jess,” he offered as a response to the proclamation and she smiled, holding out her hand to shake his.

“Brooke Davis.”

**IV. We need lies to make it through the day.**

She felt like she honestly hated her ex-boyfriend after she finally listened to his voicemail, but she couldn’t help but dote on him for introducing her to literature that she never would have bothered with otherwise. It gave her something to talk about with her new friend, the not-so-charming Mr. Mariano, and she was glad.

“Can I suggest something?”

Turning to face him, she nodded and smiled brightly when he handed her a black-bound novel. The image of a young girl sitting despondently on cement steps stared up at her and she furrowed her brow, glancing briefly at the title. “ _Atonement_?”

“It’s not what you’d expect from the cover. Definitely a romance, but definitely not what you’d assume,” he promised. The words sounded sincere and Brooke nodded once, curling her fingers more firmly around the paper-bound pages of the novel.

“Well, you’d know,” she turned to look at his extensive collection again and laughed. “Do you do anything other than read?”

“Not much,” he responded easily. She clenched her jaw at the dead tone of voice and wondered if the rumor was true: _did girls really marry their fathers?_ Honestly, she had no idea what she should believe anymore. And she was getting ahead of herself, anyway.

“So what was with the writing at the bookstore the other day?” she asked, trailing her fingers over the bindings of books she had never even heard of. She wasn’t a reader, and she had never been told that she should be. Books turned her off after that year of hell when she was little. Brooke simply didn’t like to immerse herself in things that lied to her. That didn’t explain why she went back to Lucas, but the world was full of hypocrites anyway.

“Nothing,” he answered her question nonchalantly and she turned around sharply, glaring harshly at him. Jess held her gaze steadily, never wavering, and it pissed her off that he could be so monosyllabic and collected all the time. After two days of knowing him, she still felt like he was a thousand miles away.

“Do you even _believe_ in telling the truth?”

“Does it matter?” His jaw clenched and then he smirked, folding his arms across his chest. “If you’re that into fairytales, then you must not like the truth much either.”

Recoiling, she placed the book he gave her in her purse and pursed her lips. “Thanks for the book,” she murmured coldly. Without another word, she turned and headed for the door of his apartment, curling her fingers around the doorknob and yanking the barrier to her exit open before he said a damn thing to stop her.

“Let me know if you like it.”

The door slammed shut behind her and she leaned against it sadly. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and took a deep breath. “ _Prince Charming_ ,” she whispered mockingly. With a roll of her eyes and a sigh she pushed herself away from the door and headed for the elevator to go home.

——

The ending shocked her. It shouldn’t have, because at this point she knew better than to get her hopes up over something so insignificant and ridiculous as true love and happiness, but it still made her head spin. Technically, there were two endings. And she didn’t know which one she wanted to believe. One of them was clearly true. The other, clearly a lie.

But Brooke apparently couldn’t make it through the day without being lied to at least once. Sighing, she got off the couch and grabbed her new copy of _Cinderella_ off the shelf and asked herself why the prince always had to be so charming. Was it wrong that she always fell for the bad guys instead? Did it say something about her?

She sighed again and sank into the couch cushions. Tossing the book onto the coffee table, she ran her hands over her face exhaustedly. _Happily ever after_ was just another sick and twisted joke, like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. She wondered whether or not the Grimm brothers had the real stories. She was fairly certain that they did.

An hour later, she sat in the center of a circle of classic tales and she finally came to a simple conclusion:

The protagonist almost always got her way.

But what about the starving artists? The writers? The girls who weren’t raised to be perfect, but rather to be different? She wasn’t, but she wondered about those who were. She wished she could’ve been taught how to rebel. The only thing she ever ignored was the fact that she could have had a nice guy if she only wanted one.

 _And she lived happily ever after in the arms of her prince._ The rebel girl, on the other hand, would burn away in the arms of Lucifer himself until the flames licked through her skin and boiled her blood. She would melt into a pile of ash and carrion on the warm floors of hell and her blackened bones would paint the walls with their chalk.

Though heaven and hell were probably lies, too. So Brooke didn’t know where she stood.

**V. Hate is a strong word but I really, really, really don’t like you.**

Jess’ head dropped back and she smiled a little, cocking her head to the side. He finally turned to look at her and his jaw was set. “Don’t you have friends?” It hit her more sharply than it should have, but she ignored the barb and shrugged cutely.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be spending all of my time with you! So, how’s the novel coming?”

“There isn’t one,” he answered, continuing to pull books from the box next to him and then place them on a shelf. Brooke furrowed her brow and settled her left hand on her hip, leaning against the shelf gently.

“Now, I _know_ that’s a lie,” she said simply. Jess froze momentarily, but didn’t look at her, and she forged on, waving her hand toward the front of the store carelessly. “That is your book sitting on the Employees’ Pick shelf over there, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” he supplied. Brooke bit back a groan of irritation, still not used to his short answers, even after a month of hearing them.

“So, what’s this new one about? Is it a sequel?”

“Do you care?”

“Well—”

“Just stop, Brooke,” he cut her off sharply and she flinched.

“You don’t like me, do you?” she dreaded the answer, but the question fell from her mouth like vomit. The worst thing about no longer being the princess was that she lost the censor with the privileges. She took a deep breath and met his gaze when he looked at her again, hand posed with a tilted book on the edge of the shelf.

“Someone’s observant,” he deadpanned. A second later he went back to his job and she narrowed her eyes. She was Brooke Davis; no one talked to her like that. Not even Lucas. When Peyton did, she ended up with a pretty red handprint on the side of her face. As Jess’ words sank further into her brain, she was tempted to slap him too. Clenching her fist briefly, she sighed shakily and leaned further into the shelf.

Deciding against it, she pulled the book he leant her out of her purse and held it out to him. “Very enlightening,” she said simply, without any real inflection. “Though I have to say, the notes in the margins made the entire book.” He stilled and she set the novel on the shelf, punching his shoulder hard as she brushed past him to leave the store.

Jess grabbed her arm and jerked her back, pinning her against the bookshelf. Pushing at his chest, she fought hard to keep her facial expression neutral, all the while attempting to get her heart rate under control.

“Never pictured you as the violent type,” she growled.

“Maybe you aren’t as observant as I thought,” he teased, though there was something darker lining his words that gave her pause. Shoving him hard, she used her size to her advantage and slipped out from under his arm, twirling to face him as she walked backward toward the door.

“Next time you want to make out with me, just ask,” she winked, not waiting for a response before she grabbed the door and jerked it open, breathing deeply as she slid into the traffic on the Philadelphia sidewalk.

—

A loud knock reverberated on the scarcely-decorated walls of her living room, causing her to roll her eyes as she flipped to the next page in the latest edition of _Cosmopolitan_. Blissful silence accompanied her for a moment, and she bit her lip gently as she tried to ignore the guilt tugging at the lining of her stomach.

“Brooke, I know you’re in there,” he called from the other side of the door. She arched one perfect eyebrow and didn’t respond. Jess knocked again. “I’m not afraid to break in, you know.”

With a groan, she tossed her magazine onto her coffee table and stood, crossing the room and unlocking the deadbolt as slowly as she possibly could. Just before she jerked the door open, Brooke pasted an irritated look on her face and somehow managed to keep it there when he smirked at her as he leaned against her doorframe.

“What?” she sighed.

He rolled his eyes in response, but she noticed with grim satisfaction that he seemed somehow deflated. “Figured I’d stop by.”

“Because your phone is broken?”

“Because we didn’t end things on such a great note today,” he replied. Subdued, she stepped back to let him into her apartment and shut the door quietly behind him. “Look, Davis—”

“If you’re going to feed me excuses, don’t bother,” she said immediately, turning to face him. He raised his eyebrows briefly and she folded her arms across her chest protectively. “I’ve heard them plenty of times before.”

“All of them?”

“Every last one,” she nodded once. Jess smirked softly and glanced at the stack of books and magazines on her coffee table, seemingly contemplating her statement.

“Somehow, I think that’s a lie.”

“Oh?” she resisted the urge to smile.

“Is that intrigue I hear?” he teased, sitting on the arm of the couch. Brooke bit her lip and shook her head unconvincingly, stubbornly remaining near the door. “That excuse might surprise you,” he offered.

“Try me.”

Smirk firmly in place, Jess mimicked her position by crossing his arms and sighed heavily. “I got a phone call last night,” he began. She rolled her eyes tightly, but before she could respond he continued, “From an old friend. Let’s call him … Ed.”

His tone was mocking, his drawl slow and precise, and she briefly remembered her mother using the same tone whenever she would read Brooke to sleep as a child. Jess locked eyes with her from across the room and she hated him momentarily for being so beautiful.

“Ed told me that a dragon had broken into the city in search of a princess,” he lowered his voice conspiratorially, eyes dancing with amusement and something else she couldn’t quite place. “Of course, the only princess I could think of was just a few blocks away, probably obliviously leafing through her fairytales, trying to figure out where her life went wrong.”

Brooke flushed and Jess stood, taking a few steps closer to her. “So I rushed out of my apartment to save her, grabbing the first weapon I could find, and sure enough—” he grinned fully, stopping abruptly when he was just about a foot from her.

A long, pregnant silence filled the room and then she sighed heavily, cocking her head to the side as she stared at him. “What happened?” she asked, faux-cheerful.

Jess shrugged, taking another step toward her. “Saved the day, of course.”

“You’re a terrible storyteller,” she murmured.

“Huh,” he said. She stared at him for another long moment and then sighed heavily.

“So why did Ed call you and not someone else?” she prompted.

“Good question,” he nodded and unfolded his arms, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Is it one you’re going to answer?”

Jess smirked again and brushed past her, opening the door and leaving her apartment. Brooke dropped her jaw, furrowing her brow angrily as she turned and rushed after him. Stopping at the top of the stairs, she called his name and pursed her lips into a thin line when he stopped and turned to face her.

“Why did Ed call you?” she repeated, impatient now.

“Because Prince Charming doesn’t exist,” he said seriously. With that, he continued down the stairs and out of sight, and she felt like she had just been hit in the chest with a ton of bricks.

**VI. I don’t mind you under my skin.**

The next time he stopped her retreat and swung her around, pushing her against one of the many bookcases in Truncheon, Brooke was just as unprepared as she had been the first time. “Jess, I really have to—”

He pressed his mouth roughly against hers and she gasped into his mouth, her hands betraying her and lying gently against his chest as opposed to pushing him away like she wanted them to. After a moment, she pulled away and stared up at him, wide-eyed.

“What was that?” she breathed.

“From the things you’ve told me, I figured you would know what a kiss felt like,” he rolled his eyes and shoved a hand through his hair. She recognized it as a nervous habit and fought not to smile.

“You said you hate me.”

“No, I didn’t,” he retorted, clearly confused.

“Oh yes you did,” she nodded calmly. “The last time I was here.”

“I did not,” he was indignant now, and it made her smile.

“Fine. But you said you don’t like me,” she corrected her statement and he dropped his hand dejectedly at his side. “What makes you think I’d let you kiss me after that?”

“From what I recall, I explained my behavior from that day the other night when I showed up at your apartment,” he returned easily, smirking softly. Brooke shook her head.

“Hardly,” she whispered. “Care to guess again?”

“The fact that you don’t want a happy ending,” he retorted. Bitterly. The words lacerated her skin and she wondered if this was her chance to be the rebel girl, to burn in the boy’s arms once and for all.

“I don’t think that was _ever_ the sentiment,” she said quietly, injecting as much venom into her tone as she possibly could with him pressed up against her. “All I said was that I was tired of people telling me that everything would be fine when it totally wo—”

He cut her off with another kiss and this time she curled her fingers into his shirt, pulling him against her before wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. The touch of his hands on her lower back burned, but not enough to scald, and she opened her mouth for him as he pressed her more firmly against the bookshelf. The wood dug into her back and she was tempted to laugh.

How appropriate that this was happening against the spines of _The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales_.

—

Brooke wound one hand into Jess’ hair, curling her other hand into his so that his fingers fit the spaces between hers. She gasped when his tongue landed on her pulse point and arched into him, letting her head fall to the side to give him more room.

“This is such a bad idea,” she laughed airily, closing her eyes softly.

“Says who?” he asked, the words vibrating against her skin and sending ricochets of shivers down her spine.

“Me,” she shrugged simply and stared at him seriously when he pulled away from her.

“Hmm,” he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and she bit the inside of her bottom lip, falling back against his wall so that it was supporting her full weight. “Why’s that?”

“I’m not good at the whole _relationship_ thing,” she admitted, the words hasty and only half-true. She could be if she wanted; she just didn’t want to risk her heart to another guy, especially when she _knew_ this one was the bad guy. With Lucas she was somewhat blind-sided. With Jess…

“Then fuck labels,” he said flippantly. Brooke arched an eyebrow and Jess groaned, resting his forehead against hers and trailing his hand up and down her arm. “This doesn’t have to be something conventional.”

Desperately trying to recall how to breathe, she rested both hands on his biceps and squeezed gently, tilting her head up to press her mouth to his. He responded briefly before pulling away. “Okay,” she nodded.

“Okay,” he agreed. He kissed her again and she pushed away from the wall, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and grinning when he groaned in response.

**VII. I’ll make the most of all the sadness.**

The cell phone she once cherished was starting to collect dust. Idly, she wondered how many voicemails from Lucas were saved in its memory, and then she cast the thought aside before the depression set in that she didn’t want or need to feel anymore. Raising her eyes to her reflection’s, Brooke pulled her hair away from her face and wrapped it in a low ponytail, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear.

Unconventional.

Supposedly.

With a sigh, she flicked off the light in her bedroom and wandered down the short hallway of her apartment into the living room, smiling at the sight of him reading on her couch.

“God, I didn’t take _that_ long, did I?” she teased. Jess grinned behind the pages, but didn’t look away from them, and Brooke felt like pouting.

Instead, she gracefully walked along the front of the couch, removing the book from his grasp and haphazardly dog-earing the page he was on before crawling onto the couch and up the length of his body.

“I was reading that,” he protested softly. She smiled and kissed him gently, running her hands lightly down his chest. “Trying to compromise my virtue, Davis?”

Snorting in a very unladylike fashion, she lowered her mouth to his neck. “I didn’t know you had virtue still uncompromised,” she argued.

“Touché,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her waist loosely. Brooke sat up so that she was straddling him and sighed heavily, blowing loose strands of hair from her face with the force of the air. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she replied, seeing the frustration flash through his eyes like cherry flavoring in the dark pools of chocolate. Well, at least now he knew how she felt whenever she tried to ask him a question.

Jess sat up abruptly and she squealed, giggling sharply against his mouth when he kissed her. “Having second thoughts?”

She kissed him again, threading her arms around his neck as he opened his mouth to her. Attempting to push him back down so that she could pull him off of this train of thought, she made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat when he resisted her attempt.

Pulling away, Jess furrowed his brow and ran his fingers through her hair. “Brooke,” he said seriously.

“Jess,” she mocked.

“Acting like me isn’t going to make me stop asking,” he snapped, suddenly angry. Brooke rolled her eyes and climbed off of his lap awkwardly, crossing the room and staring dejectedly out the window.

“Then what will?” she wondered, not sure if the sentiment was meant for him or not.

“Is this about Lucas?” he asked, and she felt a trap door release in her stomach, acid falling out of it in waves and boiling every inch of her skin in a matter of seconds.

“God, no,” she scoffed harshly.

“Then what is it about?”

She was quiet for a long moment and then she folded her arms across her chest, sighing lightly. “My parents stopped kissing,” she told him. Jess wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and she leaned into him unconsciously. He didn’t say anything in response and she laughed, bitterly. “My mom used to prattle on and on about finding true love and then they just … stopped kissing.”

“That’s when it stopped?”

“What?”

“You believing in fairytales,” he whispered gently, pressing his mouth to the dip below her ear.

“Maybe,” she nodded, unsure.

—

_The Prince could not bear to part from his little love again, so he carried her back to the palace in his grand coach, and they were married that very day._

Brooke threw the book onto Jess’ desk and sat down opposite him, smiling brightly. He looked up from his notebook and raised an eyebrow, glancing from her to the book and back to her again.

“You know how you said that Prince Charming doesn’t exist?” she asked, softly enough that the customers scattered about the room couldn’t hear her. Jess nodded once, confusion coloring his eyes, and Brooke smiled again. “I’ve decided that you’re wrong.”

“Well, this is quite a change from last week,” he shut his notebook and dropped it on the desk in front of him, picking up her copy of _Cinderella_ disinterestedly.

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes and leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking about it, trying to put this whole melodramatic funk I’ve been in for the past eight years into a different light, and I think I finally figured it out.”

“Care to share?” he asked, dropping the book and earning a glare from her. He rolled his eyes and apologized quickly.

“The happily ever after isn’t the point of the story.”

Jess smiled, somewhat of a rarity, and Brooke couldn’t help but return the gesture. “It isn’t?”

“No,” she shook her head, “Because the story only really starts when the couple gets together, and that always happens right before the happily ever after,” she explained. “So all this time I’ve been expecting a fairytale, and technically I’ve always gotten one.”

She stopped talking abruptly when she noticed that he was staring intently at her, and she flushed. “What?”

“Nothing,” he smirked softly, knowingly.

“Jess, come on,” she whined.

Folding his hands in his lap, he leaned back in his chair and continued to appraise her. Brooke tightened her grip on her purse, ready to swing it over her shoulder and leave to save herself from saying something she would surely regret, when he finally decided to speak.

“You keep surprising me,” he offered.

“Is that a good thing?” she asked, hesitant. Jess shrugged slightly.

“You tell me.”


End file.
